Skip to main content

THAT SWEET DIAMOND


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Janeczko, Paul. 1998. THAT SWEET DIAMOND: BASEBALL POEMS. Ill. by Carole Katchen. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers. ISBN 978-0689807350.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

That Sweet Diamond: Baseball Poems is a love story to the game of baseball. It perfectly captures the experience of attending a game, from the hot dog vendors to the plays on the field to the uber-fan. There are nineteen poems, each paired with a pastel illustration by Carole Kitchen on the facing page. The illustrations have an other-worldly quality in an impressionistic format which breathes life into the movement of the game.

The poems are a combination of formats, including both rhyming and nonrhyme. The rhythmn is strong, with the beats of the poem appropriately matching the action Janeczko is trying to convery in each baseball scene. Kids will especially love the poem about spit, as well as the one about the old lady who sits in Section 7, Row 1, Seat 3. Peppered throughout the poems are the English essentials teachers crave: similes and metaphors. They flow organically throughout and will serve as models for how to craft comparisons which bring poetry to life for the reader.

SPOTLIGHT POEM AND LESSON

This lesson is appropriate for upper elementary and middle school. My target objective would be to help kids understand that poems can be about anything the author cares about, including this poem: How to Spit. After reading the poem, I would engage the kids in a brainstorm about other, seemingly unimportant, topics they could write a poem about. Then, I would share a few more poems from the book and give the kids time to write a poem of their own about any topic.

How to Spit

At the plate,
never without an attitude:
arrogance or annoyance.
Never as if you were just spitting.
And always for an audience.

Practice
is the key
to developing your style.

Check the wind.

Concentrate.

Don't dribble.

A spray is as pitiful
as fouling to the catcher.

Noise is optional.

Save the practical spit

for the pocket of your mitt.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

FOREST HAS A SONG

Vanderwater, Amy FOREST HAS A SONG. Ill. by Robbin Gourley. ISBN 9780618843497. CRITICAL ANALYSIS Amy Vanderwater brings us a hearty collection of 26 poems. They weave together the story of one girl’s experience in the forest over the course of a year. The poems begin with spring and then merge into summer, with poems like APRIL WAKING and PUFF. Fall and winter poems wrap up this collection, including MAPLES IN OCTOBER and COLORFUL ACTOR. Each poem brings the reader into the forest, so we enjoy the romp through each season with the girl. VanDerwater’s use of language leads the reader to experience the sounds and rhythms of the forest. By employing italics, she brings the forest’s perspective in some poems, which serves as a wonderful point-of-view experience for the young reader. The collection is superbly  illustrated by Robbin Gourley. At its best, illustrations tell a visual story which parallels and enhances the textual message. Gourley does this brilli...
2 comments
Read more

TRICKS

Hopkins, Ellen. 2009. TRICKS. New York: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division. ISBN 9781416950073.  TRICKS takes us on the journey of five teens descending into the seedy world of teen prostitution. Eden is the daughter of a preacher. Her mother sees demons in Eden’s first brush with love and sends her off to prevent whorish behavior, which Eden ironically learns at the ranch where she’s sent. Cody deals with the devastating loss of his stepfather to cancer by spiraling downward into the world of gambling. He soon will sell anything to pay his increasing debts. Seth is looking for love and acceptance of his homosexual identity, only to be accused by his father of being a deviant; then, he becomes one. Whitney desperately seeks love from her socialite mother and successful father. She wants to be seen and noticed by them, but will accept the love of a stranger to replace her familial invisibility. And finally Ginger, who is tricked for the fi...
3 comments
Read more

THE CROSSOVER

BIBLIOGRAPHY Alexander, Kwame. 2014. CROSSOVER. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 9780544107717. CRITICAL ANALYSIS I had the opportunity to listen to Kwame Alexander speak at the Texas Library Association conference in San Antonio in April 2014. He spoke on the impetus for Crossover: to write a verse novel for boys. And not just any boy, but the sports-loving, poetry-hating, I-don’t-go-to-the-library sort of boy. I was completely intrigued and knew I had to read this book, because he’s absolutely correct in noticing the gap in this genre’s niche: most verse novels are written to appeal to girls, and boys who do read verse novels are already vested in their own reading identity. But could he pull it off? I will freely admit, although I loved the cover, that I was a bit skeptical of the goal. I’m a middle school librarian, so I really wanted to meet the verse novel which could hook my sports-loving, poetry-hating, I-don’t-go-to-the-library boys into reading i...
1 comment
Read more